Respond to an investigation
What you will learn
✅ How to answer an investigation request received from another financial institution, and how to choose the right outcome so the requesting institution knows where their enquiry stands.
Learn about Wires.
Before you begin
Make sure you have:
- Permission to respond to investigations. Request access through your usual role process.
You should also be familiar with how the original wire was processed, since most investigations are questions about a payment we have already handled.
What an investigation request is
Another institution sends an investigation request when they need something from us about a wire:
- confirmation that funds were credited
- an explanation of a delay
- a correction to details
- an answer to a compliance enquiry
It is a question, not an instruction. No funds move. Your job is to answer it, and to be explicit about whether the matter is now settled.
An investigation is not the way to ask for money back. If the requesting institution wants funds returned, they need to send a return request, and you should say so in your response rather than treating it as an investigation you can resolve. See Return requests.
Process overview
An investigation request arrives and appears as an inbound payment record. You open it, review what is being asked, and respond from the payment tasks panel. Your response goes back to the requesting institution and is linked to the original request, so the exchange stays together in the payment history. If you cannot answer immediately, you can respond more than once: acknowledge first, answer later.
To ask another institution a question about a wire, see Send an investigation.
To respond to an investigation request
Open the investigation request from the payments list. It appears as an inbound record, and the message content shows what the other institution is asking.
Read the request against the original wire before you start writing. Most investigations need a specific fact, such as an IMAD, a posting date or a return date, and finding it first saves a second exchange.
In the payment tasks panel, select the option to respond to the investigation.
Choose a Status. This is the outcome of the investigation from our side, and it is the part the requesting institution acts on:
- Closed: the matter is resolved and your response contains the answer. Use this for a completed funds confirmation, a full explanation of a delay, or a definitive "we cannot make that amendment."
- Pending: you have received the request and are working on it, but do not have the answer yet. Use this when you need to check with another team, wait on a customer, or escalate. Respond again with Closed once you have the answer.
- Rejected: you are not going to action the request. Use this when the request cannot be answered as sent, for example when the original transaction was never received by us, or when the enquiry should have come through a different message type.
Choose a Reason Code. Mandatory when the status is Pending or Rejected, optional when the status is Closed.
Choose the code that most closely matches your actual reason. The codes are what the other institution's system reads, and the narrative is what their operator reads.
Write the Narrative. A single free-text field with a live character count. Mandatory when the status is Closed, and whenever the reason code is Narrative.
Submit. An outbound investigation response is generated, linked to the original request, and routed back to the requesting institution. Both messages appear together in the payment history.
What happens next
You can respond to the same investigation as many times as you need to. The intended pattern is Pending first, then Closed:
- Respond with Pending and a reason code such as In Progress or Awaiting Reply From Customer, so the requesting institution knows the request landed and is being worked on.
- When you have the answer, respond again with Closed and the narrative that resolves it.
Leaving an investigation unanswered while you work on it is the most common cause of a duplicate request arriving a day later.
Best practices
Match your answer to what was actually asked. Answering the wrong question generates another round.
- An investigation asking whether funds were credited needs an IMAD and a date.
- An investigation asking why a wire was delayed needs a reason and a timeline.
Be specific and be brief. State the fact that answers the question rather than restating the question. The reader is an operator at another bank who has only what you send them. Avoid internal shorthand and reference numbers that mean nothing outside Cross River.
If the requesting institution actually wants funds returned, say that a return request is required rather than closing the investigation as though the matter is settled.
If a return has already been processed, say so and reference the earlier response, so the requester can reconcile against what they already received.
If an amendment is requested that cannot be made to a wire that has already settled, say plainly that it cannot be changed and what the requester's options are.
Purely informational messages that need no action from us do not always need a response. Where a response is expected, Closed with a short narrative is enough.